“I hev settled down, Buffler,” replied the ungainly scout, with a sigh, “but this year I hankered arter ther old life. I shore told my wife that I must hev a mounting outing, or else I’d go plumb crazy. She reasoned with me, but it wa’n’t no sorter use. I war bound ter go, an’ hyer I be, stanch, loyal, an’ true, like a pig’s foot in mush.”
“Same old Alkali,” laughed Buffalo Bill.
“Erbout ther same, but not quite. My feet shore got tender a bit while I was cahootin’ with them innercent rickaroons that raise corn an’ mortgages along ther Missourah.”
“I understand. You wouldn’t have fallen into the hands of the Apaches if you had come out here with your wits rodeoed.”
“That’s a plumb true remark, Buffler,” rejoined Alkali Pete sadly. “I was too fresh when I hit these yer hills. I hed reckoned that ther ’Paches would let an honest white man alone. I hedn’t hearn that they hed been puttin’ on the war paint ag’in.”
“How were you captured?”
“How?”—in deep disgust. “Why, when I war snoozin’ on ther bank of ther crik on t’other side of those hills. Hed been huntin’, and hed killed a b’ar an’ two deer. War powerful tired, an’ while I war sleepin’ ther sleep that innercence only is shore acquainted with, ther ’Paches crope up and corralled me ez easy as if I war a lost babby. Shucks! it shore makes me dumgasted weary when I recollects how I war taken in.”
“Were there any white men among the Indians?” inquired Buffalo Bill.
“Nary a one. They war all ’Paches, an’ that old thief, Thunder Cloud, war ther leader. Ther capture happened a month ago, an’ I war with ther reds, moseyin’ hither an’ yon up ter a couple o’ days ago, when we hot-footed it fer ther castle.”
“The castle? I have heard of the place, but I don’t know where it is, and I have no idea what it looks like.”